05
Friend. A person who takes care of you and who you take
care of, a person never further than a phone call, a person
who makes you feel safe when fear is so close to taking
over. A person who makes you laugh, a person you can be
vulnerable with and a person capable of hurting you.
I’ve looked into eyes, thrown the word love in an
attempt to feel secure. In an attempt to recreate the
safety and warmth of those Friday nights I once had.
As if laughs, hugs, and secrets were all we needed. I’ve
propped the entirety of myself up against friendships
never questioning the devotion of myself because that’s
something friends don’t have to do. In the heat of a
heartfelt talk or a tear-inducing laugh, how could we
think anything less than always? Sometimes I hate that
trust I learned from Mia; sometimes I think how naive
it is to trust so easily, sometimes I wish friendships never
had to end, never had to change. That you can laugh
with someone you can cry with someone and that the
bond you form will be forever. But time and people have
proved this dream false. Friendships evolve and grow, and
sometimes friendships fall apart. Mia didn’t deliberately
fall apart, but she did fall away, and though their causes
are different their results are the same. We are absent
from each other’s lives and though this was a natural,
perhaps even unpreventable progression, it still hurts.
Losing people actively or passively is painful, I knew
that at nine when I left my home, I knew that at
14 when I said goodbye to Mia, and I’ve become
reacquainted with that now at 16 as I try and distill
some sense from the twisting breathing friendships
I find myself in. The older I’ve gotten, the more
intense these divergences feel, Mia prepared to trust
and love, but she did not prepare me nearly enough
for the loss. But what if I still have something yet to
learn from her? What if her impact on me isn’t done?
What if those Fridays still exist for us always waiting
seemingly out of reach? What if I haven’t lost her?
There is this theory out there that when we die our
souls remain undeparted for as long as you are held
in the memories of the living. Your soul will die with
the last time you are remembered, the last time your
name is spoken when the world is indifferent to you
and you to the world. Think about this. That under
this theory a person might not be thought of or
mentioned for centuries, yet they must stay because
they haven’t reached the end, The soul can never
know if it has reached the end until it is there and at
that point, indifference has taken over. In a similar
way, one could think of friendship. If indifference
doesn’t yet exist, then we must not be at the end.